In Praise of Family Meals

 

 
 I know. I write a lot about food.

Apart from the fact that it's a glorious gift from God for which I grateful, I'm also very happy about the family-building opportunities which meal-times have given me throughout my adult life.

When my husband and I were first married, we used to love to have friends round for a meal. I would experiment with new recipes and ingredients we first encountered on our many travels. I felt a great deal of satisfaction at planning and preparing to host a meal for friends.

Things inevitably changed when a baby came into our family, but I knew that I did not want to waste the valuable opportunity which meal times give us for building relationships, listening and talking, modelling and guiding.

I was very lucky that, for many years, my husband was around at breakfast time with me and the children. During their middle childhoods, he was able to walk to work and back and was there at the meal times at each end of the day. I wish I could say something holy about having Bible time or praying at each meal, but that wasn't really us.

Breakfast

No, my spiritual ambitions for meals were more modest. A whole family, 'breaking our fast' together, eating nutritious meals, being polite at the table, learning to take turns in conversations, and clearing the table afterwards before we started our schoolwork, this was our aim. (School always began with a Bible reading, though.)

 

Lunch

Weekday lunches were either taken on the run, as we moved through our busy week, or just simple sandwiches and fruit. At the weekend, I tended to make more of an effort.

Even so, we usually sat down at the table together and talked about our ideas, dreams and plans. Am I painting too sweet and unrealistic a picture? Probably. We had our fair share of spillages and arguments, sulks and food-fussinesses. Sometimes, I'd prepare a picnic for the children to eat on the living room floor while they watched a movie.

Dinner

Later, Daddy would be home and dinner would, more often than not, be ready. Sometimes, though, I couldn't manage to cook anything and he'd bring something home from the shop to prepare quickly. And then we sat and ate and talked about our days.

Are you picking up on a theme? Mealtimes for us were not just about eating; they were about talking.

Would it surprise you to learn that the simple act of eating a meal together around a table is becoming obsolete in the UK? An survey a couple of years ago tells a sorry tale of solo eating of meals on laps whilst watching tv.

According to the poll of 500 people, fewer than one in five said they ate at the dining or kitchen table “one or two meals a week” compared to 13 per cent who did once a day.  Almost one in three people admitted eating at the dining table only a “few times a year”, four per cent never did while three per cent of respondents do not even own a table.

Family meal times have even been proven to benefit children's development.

Having seen the blessings of focused family interaction around a table, I humbly ask you, Dear Daughter, not to let this practice drift into obscurity. Start when your children are babies. Pull up their high chairs to the table. Let them in on the conversations. Teach them to enjoy eating together, in an unhurried and grateful way. Yes, they will need to scramble down again quite quickly and I'm not advocating pinning them there until the last adult finishes eating! Meals are for enjoyment, after all, not punishment.

Start as you mean to go on. If you don't practise a habit, it will fade.

Mimi is a wife to Jamie, mother to two grown up children, a mother-in-law and a grandmother to a darling little grand-daughter. She home-educated her children and now teaches exam subjects to groups of home-educated children. She's a Worship Leader in her church and has a passion for helping women raise children to adulthood with a strong faith in the Lord Jesus.